Compasses of various kinds are known in the state of the art and are used for orienteering, i.e. the practice of using a compass, generally in combination with a topographic map, to determine a bearing or the route of travel. Commonly, classical or conventional compasses comprise a base member and a vial assembly pivotally coupled to the base member. The vial assembly comprises a vial and an azimuth ring as well as a magnetized indicator member pivotally journaled in the vial. Generally, the magnetized indicator member is a kind of a needle pointing to magnetic north. Moreover, an orienting marker is located in the vial, which is commonly in form of an orienting arrow.
For taking a bearing for a destination visually, the compass is held level with a direction-to-travel arrow pointing towards the desired destination. For instance, the latter one can be a land mark like a mountain, a hill or a building. As a next step, the azimuth ring is rotated until the orienting arrow lines up with the needle, thus, both pointing to magnetic north. However, accurate sighting of a land mark and simultaneously taking a bearing is demanding and can lead to errors. To overcome such problems, the compass can be equipped with a hinged cover comprising a mirror and a sighting window or a similar device for sighting a land mark. Such compasses are commonly called mirrored compasses. This allows sighting the land mark through the sighting window and simultaneously allows reading the needle alignment and azimuth ring in the reflection of the mirror.
Although usage of mirrored compasses greatly facilitates the directional reading, it is still prone to inaccuracies caused by parallax, i.e. an apparent displacement of an object when viewed from different sights. In particular, the mirrored image has to embrace the whole vial assembly as the sighted land mark may be e.g. in the north or in the south of the user. Thus, this may cause the bearing to be inaccurately taken resulting in unintended detours or even leading to dangerous situations when one gets lost in the wilderness.
Thus, the objective of the present invention is to provide a mirrored compass which facilitates the sighting of a land mark and simultaneously allows for a non-parallaxed directional reading.